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Series II: Vol. 54 Autumn 2020 A Community Converses ART AND ARTISTS AT LATHROP “Morning Shadows” by Anne Yarnall

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Page 1: ART AND ARTISTS AT LATHROP - lathropres.org

Series II: Vol. 5—4

Autumn 2020 A Community Converses

ART AND ARTISTS AT LATHROP

“Morning Shadows” by Anne Yarnall

Page 2: ART AND ARTISTS AT LATHROP - lathropres.org

The Lathrop Nor’Easter 2 Autumn 2020

Yes, It Really Is About You

Contributing to The Nor’Easter

It’s about the poems you write, about the vignettes you’ve related for years but

have never recorded, about the foul ball you caught with your other hand (or may-

be dropped with the favored one), about a chance elevator ride with a celebrity du

jour, about that epiphanic moment when it all became clear, about the first sight of

the phantom of delight who changed your life, about that time in the Great Depres-

sion or in the War of Your Choice, about your genealogy searches, about your

travels, about your work or profession — in short, about what interests you to

write, and you know better than we do what that is.

Send your contributions and questions to:

[email protected]

We prefer contributions written in Word, PDF, or RTF format, but if you have

sagely avoided computers and email, get in touch with the Editorial Committee. As

a Lathrop resident, you will know how.

About the Artist:

Anne Yarnall

“For me, abstraction seems to

generate greater mood and in-

tensity in my work. There is a

place somewhere between real-

ism and abstraction where the

magic is. By creating tensions

between flatness and depth,

between narrative and idea, I

can get closer to the energy

and emotional weight I’m look-

ing for in my quest to demon-

strate and share my deep love

of and faith in nature.”

The Lathrop Nor’Easter Editorial Committee:

Joan Cenedella

Sarah Gauger

Lyn Howe

Sharon Kletzien

Barbara Reitt

Irving Rothberg

Stephanie Schamess

“Bazaar”

by Anne Yarnall

Page 3: ART AND ARTISTS AT LATHROP - lathropres.org

The Lathrop Nor’Easter 3 Autumn 2020

Brayton F. (Bill) Wilson,

Northampton

I grew up in Cambridge, Massa-

chusetts, spending summers in Graf-

ton, Vermont, where from high school

through college I worked, mostly for a

cousin building tennis courts. After

college I drove a bulldozer for six

months. Armed with an MF degree, I

spent a year in Australia studying

growth stresses in trees. In 1959 I

headed to Berkeley, California, for a

PhD in botany, met Mary Alice, and

we married in 1960. I finished my PhD,

and we spent 1961 to 1967 at the Har-

vard Forest in Petersham, Massachu-

setts, where I did research on tree

growth and physiology that I continued

as a professor at UMass, Amherst,

from 1967 to 1999.

We spent a sabbatical year in Aus-

tralia with our two young daughters

(born 1962, 1965). On other sabbati-

cals I went to Oregon State University

in Corvallis, and one year I helped run

a group doing research in Alaska. Start-

ing in 1983 and 1984 I helped a grad

student measuring vegetation on plots

on university forests. I have continued

decennial measurements on these plots

and made separate vegetation studies

on the Holyoke range with Mary Alice.

In the 1970s I worked with two others

on the growth and distribution of

striped maple (which I was pleased to

find in the Lathrop forest). We re-

mained friends and formed the Striped

Maple Society, which now meets every

year, this year by Zoom.

After retiring, I took a course in

the UMass history department,

“Landscape and Memory,” and got

interested in small-town histories in

Massachusetts, and towns in the Mid-

west along the shunpike route we took

to visit our daughter and grandchildren

in Iowa. Back in our younger days, we

took annual backpacking trips in

Montana. I skied cross country, ran in

road races, rode my bike. I did the

best in races when racers in my age

class (who were mostly better than

me) did not show up.

Mary Alice Bauer Wilson,

Northampton

My major claim to fame: I was

born in Omaha, Nebraska—

something I used occasionally to try

to impress my suburban-Boston

friends as I was growing up. When

that failed, I would add that I spent

every summer in Lamont, Idaho, on

my maternal grandparents' homestead

with visits to my paternal grandpar-

ents on their farm nearby. I didn't

bother to explain that the maternal

grandparents homesteaded by train in

1911, or that their place never got

rural electrification, so that my cous-

ins and I (and wandering grown-ups)

used the hand pump to draw water

from the hand-dug well, drank milk

cooled in the root cellar, etc. As an

adult, I realized that all those car trips

across the country and the evenings

lying in bed watching the lightning in

the Tetons accomplished my parents'

goal—to instill in me a love for the

vast, wild beauty of that Idaho world.

I wandered into teaching by getting

graduate student support as a teaching

assistant in political science at Berkeley,

where I met Bill. I loved teaching. I

taught high school in Oakland, Cali-

foria, in Athol, Massachusetts, and later

in Amherst. When our daughters,

Catherine and Beth, were young, I took

a series of soft-

money, flexible

positions that pro-

vided me with

amazing opportuni-

ties to learn com-

munity/school cul-

tures and how to

help teachers ac-

cess the resources

they needed. As

they grew older, I

found full-time

positions that al-

lowed me to con-

tinue my work with teachers. As I re-

flect on those busy years and the chal-

lenges schools faced, nothing, no mat-

ter how difficult it was, matches the

COVID-19 world.

In my retirement (1997), I decided

to learn to be a birder—I worked so

hard and learned so much— that I fi-

nally was able to say to my teachers,

"Thank you. Now how can I help

you?" Well, it turned out that what they

valued was my ability to not lose com-

puter files. Sigh. So, I became clerk

(some would say sheepdog) for various

non-profit birding and land trust pro-

jects. What a gift.

August 2020. As our daughters

were preparing a book of photographs

for our (Zoomed) 60th wedding anni-

versary party, they asked for an updat-

ed photo. We have included that selfie.

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The Lathrop Nor’Easter 4 Autumn 2020

In the Smith family, the passage of time is thought to be

shaped by turning points. They remember to honor the

special people who change the course of their lives in unpre-

dictable ways. Such was the case with a high school teacher

who recognized a potential star athlete in a tall, long-legged

student with an excess of energy.

The high school was in Metuchen, New Jersey, a town

too poor to provide the school with athletic facilities such as

a track for runners and jumpers like fidgety Fred Smith. One

teacher decided to confront the problem. He set up hurdles

at intervals in a hallway and taught Fred the fine points of

running the high hurdles on the hall’s hardwood floors.

Fred dedicated each afternoon to practicing hurdling tech-

niques.

Two years later Fred’s family moved to Cincinnati,

Ohio, where the high school was endowed with a fine run-

ning track. Fred excelled there at the 120-yard high hurdles

race. His father never missed watching him race, and even

A Turning Point

by Marny Smith

track and field coach Larry Snyder of Ohio State University

in nearby Columbus was a frequent spectator. He had

coached the Olympic star Jesse Owens and told Fred one

day after a race, “Son, if you ever want to come to Ohio

State just call me!”

However, not long after graduating from high school in

1943, Fred was drafted into the Army. He spent the next

four years in the military, starting briefly with the Combat

Engineers and moving on to the Army Air Corps. After

transfer to the air base in Amarillo, Texas, Fred was spotted

running hurdles in a meet by the commanding general, who

told him, “Smith, you are not flying anymore—you’re going

to play football for me.”

After almost four years of this quite unorthodox mili-

tary service, Fred was discharged. Like thousands of others

heading back to civilian life, he was eager to take advantage

of the free college tuition offered through the GI bill to

continue his interrupted education. His parents had relocat-

ed again, this time to Connecticut, which is where Fred be-

gan his search for a college that had room for him. Howev-

er, he found little resemblance between the Quonset hut

lodgings being offered by many colleges under the GI bill

and the fraternity houses he had been looking forward to.

Because he still loved to run, Fred thought of Coach

Snyder’s words, "If you ever want to come to Ohio State,

call me." It seemed like a long shot but worth a try. “Coach,

this is Fred Smith. I’m home from the war, and you proba-

bly won't remember me, but four years ago this is what you

said.” The coach listened to his every word. “Give me your

phone number, Smith, and I will call you back.” Fred was

sure that it was a long shot, a pipe dream, but the coach

called back in a half-hour with the news: “Son, you’re in

Ohio State!”

The invitation included living at the coach’s home until

Fred found a fraternity to join. He ran both the high hur-

dles and did the high jump up to 6’ 2” for Ohio State at big

meets all over the country. Fred’s father watched those rac-

es on Pathé News in the little theater in Grand Central Sta-

tion on his daily commute, and he wore Fred’s gold track-

shoe tie clip with a little “O” on it until the day he died.

The hero responsible for this most important turning

point in the life of Fred Smith was the resourceful teacher at

Metuchen High, to whom Fred is ever grateful. Sadly, he

just doesn’t remember the teacher’s name!

“Fred Overcoming the Hurdles” 1943

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The Lathrop Nor’Easter 5 Autumn 2020

Wind Jazz 2

The breath of the earth is moody tonight,

a free-jazz solo with all the world its instrument.

The woodwind trees heave dolorous sighs

against the meek singsong of power lines strings.

The nooks of houses add dissonant thin whistles

that punctuate the drone of some unknown oboe.

Leaves dash in abrupt skittering dances, their tiny footfalls

a reckless rhythm as a loose door bangs inexplicable tempo.

Only the wind knows the score and pauses

so we may hear the vast silence

into which weather wildly improvises.

by Don Horton

“Maine Boulders” by Anne Yarnall

Page 6: ART AND ARTISTS AT LATHROP - lathropres.org

The Lathrop Nor’Easter 6 Autumn 2020

The hand-carved wooden box sat

high on the bookshelf at our family

cabin in New Hampshire. Looking up,

I could almost hear from within the

box a disembodied voice pleading,

“Am I to stay here forever in limbo

beneath the VHS tapes and bird identi-

fication books?” It had been almost

three months since our fourteen-year-

old English Cocker Spaniel, Molly, had

died. Now, over Labor Day weekend,

the whole family would gather to

celebrate her life and give her a musical

send-off.

Hers would be a New Orleans

style “Jazz Funeral”, a tradition most

commonly done for individuals who

are musicians themselves. But how

appropriate to celebrate the life of our

canine contralto (famed for howling

along whenever Bill whistled “O soave

fanciulla” from La Bohème or

“Memories” from the musical Cats.)

The thirteen funeral attendees had

been instructed to wear black, which

resulted in a preponderance of Dracula

capes, sunglasses, and pirate hats. Dud-

ley, the giant black poodle, came au

naturel. In a jazz funeral, a brass band

playing somber dirges would accompa-

ny the family and friends as they walk

slowly from the home or church with

the coffin to the cemetery, often pass-

ing by favorite places the deceased

used to frequent.

Wearing her grandfather’s 1940

tuxedo, daughter Pam served as Grand

Marshal, setting the pace by placing

one foot out and pulling the other be-

hind in a slow drag. Aidan (16) fol-

lowed, boombox on shoulder, provid-

ing a pre-recorded funereal rendition of

“Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” with

the trumpet setting the melody, the

bass drum providing the somber

A Jazz Funeral For Molly

by Jane Holloway

rhythm, and the clarinet singing back

the high-pealing “widow’s wail.” Next

came Liam (13) and Kieran (12) sol-

emnly walking with their “invisible

dog” leashes from a clown supply

company. One leash bore the tag

“The Spirit of Molly” and the other

“The Spirit of Cricket.” Cricket was

Pam’s dog who died two years earlier

and who was buried in the area now

rededicated as “The Camp Missing

Moose Canine Memorial Garden.”

Chelsea (10) carried Molly’s ashes in

the carved wooden box, resting on an

egg-yolk yellow blanket, and Bella (15)

carried a bouquet of white faux roses.

The other family members fell in step

as the procession continued—step . . .

drag, step . . . drag, step . . . drag,—

beginning at Molly’s favorite couch,

and proceeding slowly past the camp-

er (her traveling doghouse), the gar-

den (ah, dirt!), and down to the lake

where Molly loved to retrieve sticks

and chase frogs. At each of Molly’s

special places, Grand Marshal Pam

led the group in a communal howl.

Once we reached the cemetery,

Jane, in a black nun’s outfit, orches-

trated a brief memorial service. Chel-

sea placed Molly’s box in the open

grave, and Bella put white roses on

the graves of Molly and Cricket, while

their canine spirits looked on. Bill

gave the eulogy and shared with the

congregants a small Zip-Loc baggie of

Lake Champlain Fudge sculpted in

the form of Molly’s favorite food.

(Medical note: Molly had undeterred

coprophagy.) In closing, each person

offered a comment on the “Spirit of

Molly” (“adventuresome,” “playful,”

“cuddly,” “thieving”) and placed an

item in the grave—a dirty sock, a

clump of seaweed, a shredded Kleenex.

In true New Orleans fashion, after

the deceased was buried, the members

of the procession said their final good-

byes and “cut the body loose” (cutting

the soul loose from earthly ties). Then

the tempo changed, as people are re-

quired to dance in honor of the dead,

so we began with an upbeat rendition

of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Dance Leader Kris demonstrated the

“Second Line” (a two-step of sorts,

where the dancers wave colorful hand-

kerchiefs or umbrellas as they move to

the beat), and then she led everyone in

cathartic dancing up from the beach,

around the flagpole, and onto the patio

for a cookout featuring hot dogs and

tofu pups.

And in my mind, I could hear my

mother’s pleading voice saying to her

six-year-old daughter, “Jane, do you

have to make such a production out of

everything?”

I fear the answer is “yes.”

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The Lathrop Nor’Easter 7 Autumn 2020

Dinner with Elyse or

Bring in the Nouns by Fran Volkmann

Elyse: Oh, this is lovely – pasta with salmon and peas. What are these little pasta thingies called again?

Me: Bow Ties

Oh yes, and the sauce— it’s rather nice. White.

Alfredo.

And you say it came from a jar?

Yes, a guy at the Co-op was pushing it, and I thought I’d give it a try.

It could use a little livening up. Some herby thing.

Some of the recipes call for mint or dill.

Or maybe that Italian thing that they use in everything.

Basil?

Oh yes, of course, basil. It would be delicious cut up into little strips and sprinkled over the top.

A chiffonade?

Yes, that’s it, a basil chiffonade. Perfect.

Did you see that documentary on PBS last night on Henry VIII? It was excellent. I think I like the documentary form better

than making history into a performance. And what’s-her-name, you know (singing) “with her ‘ed tucked underneath her

arm….”

Oh yeah, Ann Boleyn.

Yes, I didn’t realize what a conniving little you-know-what she was. I always just thought of her as a victim. And of course

she was also a victim. And who followed Henry? He did finally have a son, you know. I used to know all of the Tudors, but

no longer….

I ran into what’s-her-face yesterday, you know, the one with the little dog. Alice?

Audrey?

Oh yes, Audrey. Her little dog is named after a fruit, I think.

I think it’s Peaches.

Peaches. Very adorable little thing.

Do you remember the old song called “Bring in the Clowns” or “Send in the Clowns” or something like that? I think it was

done by Carole King or Joni Mitchell or somebody of that ilk. I can’t remember anything anymore.

Maybe it was Judy Collins? But I can’t remember who wrote it.

Here’s a new version (singing):

Isn’t it rich,

Isn’t it rare,

Losing my tadada this late, in my career?

Bring in the nouns,

There ought to be nouns,

Oh please bring them here.

Funny, what stays with us and what doesn’t.

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The Lathrop Nor’Easter 8 Autumn 2020

Bob Solosko, Northampton

I was raised in Queens in New York but moved to a

small town in western Pennsylvania when I was sixteen, go-

ing from a school with 1,500 in my class to a town of 800

with thirty-one in my graduating class. I spent eight years at

Penn State, leaving with BS, MS, and PhD degrees in electri-

cal engineering; a wife, two kids, a third one on the way, and

a banjo.

I then went to work at a research lab owned by Cornell

University, doing research and development for government

and industry. After a few years, during the upheavals at the

end of the Vietnam war, the university divested itself of this

government-funded research lab, setting it up as an inde-

pendent company and bringing in business people to run it.

This motivated me to go back to school and get an MBA in

management—I was one of the few people in the company

who could effectively communicate with both the business

managers and the academically oriented scientists and engi-

neers. Eventually, I left government-oriented R&D and

spent the last twenty-five years of my career as a system en-

gineer at Bell Labs, specifying features and capabilities of the

network equipment that Bell Labs designed, and training

managers, developers and product people in the technical

details of these features and capabilities.

I met Jean at an English country dance in Watertown,

Massachusetts, on October 11,1989 at 9:00 at night. My first

words to her were “Hi, I’m Bob”, and she answered “Hi,

I’m Jean; I saw my first dead person today.” Who could re-

sist! Jean is wife number three; we celebrated our twenty-

eighth anniversary this summer.

When Jean and I lived in Reading, near Boston, I had

the major responsibility of coordinating logistics for the

High Holiday services at our temple. After we moved to the

Valley in 2009, I did that same job at the JCA (Jewish Com-

munity of Amherst) and also served as one of the board vice

-presidents. As the head of the Buildings and Grounds com-

mittee, I initiated and was responsible for overseeing a num-

ber of major renovations. I was a long-time board member

of the New England Folk Festival Association (NEFFA)

and currently have a minor role on the NEFFA Program

Committee.

All of my hobbies and interests are lifelong ones, start-

ing when I was a teenager: photography, traditional music,

ham radio, and cycling.

I like to photograph a diverse range of subjects includ-

ing people, plants and flowers, scenics, and abstracts. My

images have been exhibited in galleries, banks, and hospitals,

and are in a number of private collections. In April 2018, I

was featured in the Art Maker column in the Daily Hampshire

Gazette. I’m an Adobe Lightroom Certified Expert and oc-

casionally teach workshops in Lightroom, Photoshop, cam-

era handling, and photography.

I play traditional five-string banjo, penny whistle, and

mountain dulcimer, mostly contra dance music, old-time

Southern mountain tunes, and Celtic tunes. I played in a

contra dance band for fifteen years in the Boston area and

now mostly just jam with other local traditional musicians.

Jean Krogh, Northampton

I grew up in Pittsburgh and have lived in Massachusetts

since attending college at Smith. Before college, I was al-

ready familiar with the Valley, from time spent in North-

ampton when my mother went to her Smith reunions, and

from time in Deerfield when my family stayed in a small

cottage on land that had been in my father’s family since the

1800s.

My last two years at Smith were focused on internation-

al folk dancing at Davis Ballroom and on the men I met

there. I took that interest in folk dancing to the Boston area,

where I moved after college to get an Ed.M. at Tufts. My

twenties were spent mostly in Cambridge—dancing, earning

a living at a variety of jobs, raising my feminist conscious-

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The Lathrop Nor’Easter 9 Autumn 2020

ness, joining some protests, learning about myself in thera-

py, being in a relationship.

When I was thirty, I left that relationship and the Bos-

ton area and moved to Deerfield and then to Northampton.

I contra danced and continued my therapy journey and my

spiritual journey. I started work as a secretary in the Office

of Alumni Affairs at the Smith College School for Social

Work and worked in that office for five years, ending up as

the Director of Alumni Affairs. Inspired by my own thera-

pists and the social workers I met at the School, I decided

to get an MSW. So I returned to the Boston area to go to

Simmons Social Work School.

After Simmons, I worked for ten years as a social work-

er, in three different jobs: with children and teens with de-

velopmental disabilities who were in foster care, in a chronic

care and rehab hospital, and in hospice. During those years,

I met Bob, and we started our life together. We were mar-

ried outdoors in 1992 on the family land in Deerfield.

In 1996, I left my hospice job to take a six-month

break. That six months turned into the rest of my life. I

never went back to social work, though I kept up my

LICSW license for many years.

My spiritual journey took a major new step when, in

2003, I converted to Judaism, in the Reform tradition. In

2006, I was part of an adult bat mitzvah class. But as in so

many parts of my life, I do not define myself as simply one

thing or another. I am Jewish and I am involved in a UU

congregation and I explore other aspects of spirituality.

Several years ago, I wrote a memoir. I had wanted to

write my life story for many years, and finally I did. Since

finishing my memoir, my life has continued along its path,

as I seek meaning, purpose, and ways to make reparations in

this world that cries out for justice and peace.

And now Bob and I have moved to Lathrop, a major

move, made more difficult in this pandemic time. We’re

very glad to be here, and we’re still making our way in this

new chapter in our lives. We’re slowly learning to co-exist in

our small kitchen!

“Pears” by Anne Yarnall

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The Lathrop Nor’Easter 10 Autumn 2020

Steffi Schamess, Easthampton

Back story:

As a member of the

editorial board of the

Nor’Easter, I volun-

teered to ask my new

neighbor to write a bio

for our next issue.

When I approached

Sarah McCardle, better

known as Tinka, she

demurred. “All new

residents are asked, and

as far as I know most

of them do it,” I said

persuasively, adding

(perhaps unwisely),

“although I seem to

have gotten away without doing one.” “Aha,” said Tinka.

“When you write yours, I’ll write mine.” I agreed, albeit re-

luctantly. So I wore my Editorial hat and interviewed my-

self. Herein follows the exchange between the Editorial Me

and the Resident Me, or EM/RM, for short.

Q&A

EM: Knowing you as I do, Steffi, I’m assuming you’d

rather talk about who you are than what you’ve done. So I’ll

start by asking you where you are from.

RM: I guessed you’d ask that, because you know I think

it’s a hard question to answer.

EM: Explain why.

RM: Let me put it this way. I’ve lived a lot of places, but

I’m really only from a few of them. Inhabiting a location is

not necessarily being from that place. My husband, for exam-

ple, was always from the Bronx, in spite of the fact that by

the time he died, in 2019, he had lived in Northampton for

many more years than he’d lived in the Bronx.

EM: Ok, skip the places you inhabited and tell us where

you’re from.

RM: I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. I’m definitely

from there. I’ve gone back and visited the two houses I

lived in there—one is right next door to the other—and

although the demographics of the neighborhood are com-

pletely different now, I still feel it’s my home. I spent my

childhood years playing under the umbrella-like branches of

a weeping mulberry tree—it’s similar to a weeping willow

but has thick green leaves and, in season, plump purple mul-

berries. That tree is still there, with my memories etched into

its leaves. I am most definitely also from Northampton,

where I lived for fifty years before moving to Lathrop. I

have friends there with whom I share a common history—

when your friendships go back 50 years, you’ve been

through a lot together.

EM: Can you tell us about a few outstanding or trans-

formative experiences in your life?

RM: At the top of the list is growing up as the first

grandchild in a three-generation, extended family, surround-

ed by my grandparents, my father’s younger five siblings,

and over time, their spouses and the cousins who came after

me. The family was lively, very funny, sometimes bawdy,

and always interesting.

Going to a small, rather unconventional college (Sarah

Lawrence College) played a huge role in who I became as a

person. Living in Israel for a year after college, coming

home, getting married, and having two children were all life-

changing events. Becoming a grandmother was immensely

gratifying. Losing a son to cancer when he was 35 and had

just become a father was not an experience I would wish for

anyone else, but I am including it because it is part of who I

am now.

Getting my doctorate at age fifty opened up a new ca-

reer for me—teaching child development at Hampshire Col-

lege—that I thoroughly enjoyed. And then—time passed, I

got old, and in May of 2019 I came to Lathrop where I had

the incredible good luck to end up on Teaberry Lane sur-

rounded by terrific neighbors. Sadly, my husband Gerry died

just a few weeks after we’d moved in, but living here has

provided the supportive environment that’s made it possible

to adjust to widowhood.

EM: Anything else you’d like to add?

RM: Hmm . . . . Ok, three things. I love murder myster-

ies, I love music (particularly choral music), and the person

I’d most like to meet in the afterlife is William Shakespeare,

so I can ask him if he really wrote all those magnificent plays.

EM: Well, I think we’ve reached the word limit. Thanks,

and I’m looking forward to seeing Tinka’s bio soon!

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The Lathrop Nor’Easter 11 Autumn 2020

In this feature, we share our “good reads” with one another. Have you read a book lately that was especially pleasing, or engrossing or

thought-provoking? We invite you to share your enthusiasm with fellow readers. Send a very short description including the author’s name,

the title, and your full name and location to Bobbie Reitt at [email protected].

What We Are Reading

Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

I chose to read The Underground Railroad

because I was involved with the study of

slavery during my long career at Old Stur-

bridge Village, a living history museum of

the early 19th century. I am drawn to that

period because I was so immersed in it for

so long. The most enriching part was role-

playing a famous abolitionist, Lydia Maria

Child, who lived here in the Valley in Flor-

ence for a few years. Reading her books and her letters and

speeches, I saw slavery through her eyes; her goal was to free

the blacks. Whitehead’s book was a must-read for me, as

painful as it was. I thought I knew so much about slavery,

but nothing prepared me for the horror, the cruelty, the pain,

the desperation to escape. I could read only small portions at

a time to truly absorb what slave life was like and to be able

to sleep at night. Don’t let my words stop you from reading a

book that will help you understand the fight for equality that

we are now undertaking.

Recommended by Daphne Stevens Northampton

(Ed. note: this book won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award)

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, is a

founding work in the history of black pro-

test. In his ‘’Forethought”, Du Bois writes:

“Herein lie buried many things which if read

with patience may show the strange meaning

of being black here at the dawning of the

twentieth century. The meaning is not with-

out interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the

problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the col-

or line.”

In our time of renewed upheaval about racism, every Ameri-

can should read this book. In the first essay, “Of Our Spir-

itual Strivings,” Du Bois argues that the world needs to know

the “strivings” in the souls of black folks—to understand the

experience of being black in America. Each subsequent essay

takes up a different look at the history and issues of racism in

America. A key metaphor in the book is the idea that a veil

“separates white and black America.” Through the veil,

blacks see themselves and how different their lives are from

whites, but “white people could not see through the veil the

opportunities that black people were denied.” The veil leads

to “double consciousness” in which blacks see themselves

through the lens of whites. Another chapter describes the

chaotic aftermath of Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves, a period

that most of us never learned about in our American history

classes. Du Bois also describes his work as a schoolteacher

in rural Tennessee, the collapse of the cotton industry, the

struggle of black tenant farmers, and the color line that

keeps blacks and whites firmly in separate communities. Du

Bois was a scholar, a sociologist and historian. He was also

a poet who brings the reader into the souls of blacks with

his heartfelt, lyrical prose.

Recommended by Joan Cenedella, Northampton

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me is a 2015

memoir written as a letter to Coates’s

teenage son, in which he describes

black life under white supremacy as

having no agency but living under the

constraints of a society designed to

limit his ambitions, even to kill him. It

was a finalist for the National Book

Award and earned him a MacArthur “genius grant.” Mod-

eled by the author on James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, it

reaches a different conclusion: Baldwin advised his nephew

to resist, hope, and reach for his dreams. Coates advises his

son that racial injustice is historical and permanent, that he

can struggle but should not expect white supremacy to

yield.

Recommended by Ellen Ober, Easthampton

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